Theme: What if…?
Summary: It was a risk of being a Ranger.
Jack muttered to himself as he loaded the dog food into the cart. Of course his phone would ring as he hand his hands full. As the ring tone went into it's second loop, he rummaged in his jeans, pulling out the phone and activating it.
"Landors." Despite being a civilian for awhile now, it was still habit to answer it like a communicator. The caller understood this, he was sure.
"Jack, it's Sky," the new Commander replied. Something in his voice made Jack pause.
"This isn't a social call, is it?" he asked, already knowing the answer. Still, he tried to ignore a nagging sensation as he put a pack of puppy biscuits in the cart, turning down the aisle to the checkout lanes.
"No, it isn't. You want formal or informal?" the other man questioned, compassion in his voice. It didn't suit Sky.
"Informal….give it to me plain," he replied as he handed the cashier his card.
"Okay. Z was on patrol, got caught up in some rough activity. She's more or less okay," Sky explained, attempting to reassure Jack.
"She better be. You wouldn't be calling if she were direly injured, you'd be meeting me at the house. What happened?" He accepted his receipt and card, pushing the cart towards the truck to unload it.
"Broken arm. Dr. Felix is putting her on desk duty for the next eight weeks, then he'll see how she's healing." Silence filled the line for a moment, then "Jack?"
"Yeah, I'm still here," he answered, pulling out his keys to start the ignition. "Is she finishing off her shift?"
"No, I've sent her to clock out. You want to pick her up?" the Commander inquired.
"Yeah, let her know I'm on my way. She's off tomorrow, right?" he asked as he backed out.
"Tomorrow and the day after…I don't want to face her wrath at being confined to desk duty anytime soon," Sky joked.
"Alright, I'll be there in….half an hour, if traffic's good. See you then," Jack replied as he prepared to hang up the phone. As he navigated traffic, he thought about all the things that could have gone wrong…what if she had walked into a gang fight? Bullets were nothing to sneeze at, he knew.
His mind ran through thousands of possibilities, hundreds of scenarios, millions of 'what if' scenes. But it boiled down to three simple things, really. He couldn't protect her forever, if it was her time to go, nothing on this planet could stop it, and the simple fact that it was a risk of being a Ranger. Each and every one of them knew that by wearing the uniform, you accepted the risks. One of those risks was severe personal injury and possible death.
And he respected her all the more for accepting those risks.